Aunt Petunia's Apology
by Naisa
Summary: When the Dursleys left Privet Drive in The Deathly Hallows, Aunt Petunia hesitates as if there was something she wanted to say. Years later, a rather awkward-looking Uncle Vernon wanders up to The Burrow to give Harry something he never expected he would ever receive: a letter of apology from his Aunt Petunia, filled with the words she never managed to say. One shot.


_Just a random idea that came to me when re-reading the last Harry Potter book, and wondering if Harry ever had any contact with Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon after the books, why exactly Aunt Petunia hated Harry and her sister so, and if she ever felt sorry for acting the way she did._

_I hope you enjoy! :)_

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Aunt Petunia's Apology

_"For a moment Harry had the strongest feeling that she wanted to say something to him: she gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to teeter on the edge of speech, but then, with a little jerk of her head, she bustled out of the room after her husband and son." - Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, The Dursley's Departing._

It was a beautiful late summer's evening; the sun shone high over The Burrow, although its strength was beginning to fade and the day was growing cooler. That didn't worry the two children playing out in the yard though, they were enjoying the warm summer weather as much as possible, and the sound of their laughter could be heard in the distance, floating on a light summer breeze.

Uncle Vernon stared up at The Burrow, and tried, with great difficulty, to conceal the look of disgust on his face. This was one of the last places you would expect to see a Dursley, and Vernon knew he would feel a lot better once he was several miles away from the place, but he had come here for an important purpose, and he would not let Petunia down.

As Vernon Dursley approached The Burrow, the front door opened and a tall man with untidy black hair and glasses approached. Harry Potter had seen his Uncle approach The Burrow from the kitchen window, after recovering from shock and getting an encouraging nudge from Ginny, he had left the house to approach him.

The two men finally stopped walking when they were about two feet from each other, as if there was an invisible barrier between them. They stared at each other, both feeling very uncomfortable, but tried not to show it.

Uncle Vernon cleared his throat importantly and managed a, "Good evening."

"...Evening," Harry replied, trying very hard not to laugh at how clearly Vernon Dursely looked and felt uncomfortable about being near The Burrow. He hadn't seen his Uncle for fifteen years, he looked much the same last time they had met, although he was less purple faced and his dark hair and moustache were beginning to grey.

"I, err, had trouble finding you, but someone told me I would find you here. A house of your friends or something," Vernon mumbled.

"Yes, we're staying for a few days," Harry added, although any attempt to make conversation he knew would very quickly end in failure. He wondered who might have told Vernon where he was, would he have really dared to talk to a Weasley? But his Uncle didn't seem in the mood to elaborate, he swung his arms a little, blowing air out his cheeks and deciding to look everywhere apart from at Harry. It was then he noticed two children playing in the garden.

"Who are they?" He asked suspiciously, forgetting that he was trying to be polite.

"My children," Harry answered bluntly.

"Oh! Oh..." Uncle Vernon had never thought to ask about his nephew's personal life, it was as if he had forgotten Harry was no longer the teenager who once lived at Privet Drive. "Dudley says you keep in contact, but he never mentioned a family..." he began.

Harry shrugged, "We only exchange Christmas cards, we don't talk much."

Vernon nodded and started averting his eyes again, becoming increasingly interested in a patch of grass a few feet away. There was an awkward silence before Harry lost his patience.

"Why did you come here?" he asked.

Uncle Vernon continued to look rather uncomfortable at this question, but Harry noticed he also looked a little sad. "Your Aunt Petunia died last week."

Harry's eyes widened with shock, "What? I'm...I'm sorry to hear that." He managed to say, and truth be told, he was. He may not have heard from Aunt Petunia in fifteen years and had never liked her, but this was a person who he had known through most of his childhood, she was the one who had fed him and clothed him, however reluctantly.

Uncle Vernon shrugged as if it was nothing, but there was a deep sadness in his eyes that Harry had never seen before. He muttered something about a short and sudden illness that Harry didn't quite catch, but then cleared his throat and said, "We looked through the Will and found she left you this, she said it was important." He pulled out of his pocket a rather crumpled looking envelope. Sure enough, Harry's name was written across it in Aunt Petunia's spidery handwriting.

Harry took it slowly, not quite knowing what to think. He stared at the letter for a moment, he never expected to be left anything by the Dursleys when they passed away, what could have Aunt Petunia left him in this envelope that was so important Uncle Vernon took the trouble of finding him and delivering it personally?

After a moment of silence, Harry slowly opened the envelope, and discovered it was a letter. He turned away from the prying eyes of Uncle Vernon to read:

_Dear Harry,_

_If you're reading this, it means I am a coward. I waited until I was no longer part of this world to tell you the truth, but I knew I had to one day, even if I never plucked up the courage of telling you in person, so I wrote it down just in case._

_I owe you an apology. I know I was a bad parent to you, and you might not even be sorry to hear that I'm gone, and the reasons for me acting the way I did so seems more and more foolish every time I think about it._

_I was a jealous sister. That's all it boiled down to in the end, my bitter jealousy I felt ever since your mother received her Hogwarts letter telling her she was a witch. I pretended to be disgusted that I had someone like that in the family, while everyone else swooned over her and thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. I was partly afraid of her magic because I didn't understand it and started to fear that she had put spells on the family so they would love her more and forget about me._

_I've never told anyone this, but I desperately wanted to have magic too. I couldn't understand why I didn't have a letter, why did I have to be normal and Lily special? I wanted to impress everyone by using magic like she did and curse the people who were mean to me. But no, I was forced to remain a Muggle and for that I hated myself as much as I hated my sister, every time I saw her I was reminded of how I was inferior to her. You may call it childish, but that hatred and jealousy stuck with me forever._

_Then Lily died, before I could change, before I could tell her I was sorry and we could act like real sisters again. I hated myself even more for that. I had settled into my Muggle life, making it as perfect as I possibly could to make up for the lack of magic, and never had the chance to give her an apology. Vernon supported me in my anti-magical views and we despised anything that was strange and could possibly be magical. When you ended up on our doorstep with a note saying Lily died for you and we had to take care of you, I realised I would face every day looking into your eyes and seeing Lily's staring back at me, asking me why I had never once wrote her a letter, why I had never forgiven her for having magic and why we could no longer be sisters. So I hated you, perhaps more than I hated her, because you reminded me of my inferiority as a Muggle and my guilt as a sister, so I kept you locked away in a cupboard, never allowed you to ask questions and pretended you didn't exist. I poured all my love for two boys into one, because I refused to accept Lily had gone and you probably had magic too. I didn't even realise I had spoiled Dudley rotten until he told me years later, and I felt even more guilty that I had damaged not one childhood, but two. I knew the way I treated you was wrong, but I blocked out my doubtful thoughts and continued to try and live my perfect life._

_It was my worst nightmare when the letters started coming, a sure sign that you were a wizard and would follow the same path as my sister. We tried to stop it from happening, Vernon was more determined than me because part of me knew the game was up, you were a wizard whether we liked it or not. It's my fault Vernon was so desperate to stop you going to that school, I had told him everything about the magical world in words filled with contempt, and he couldn't stand to have you in the house any more. However you had to stay as I refused to let my sister die for nothing, so you continued to live with us for the next six years and we all tried to continue like nothing had happened, which made everything worse, not just for you, but for all of us._

_I should have been glad when, after almost seventeen years of taking care of you and experiencing a lot more magic than we all would have liked, you were going to leave for good. But I was more scared than ever. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew someone wanted us dead, maybe all the Muggles dead, and you were in the middle of it. We had to leave our fake perfect house in our fake perfect world so we wouldn't be hunted down and killed by someone we had never heard of. It was terrifying. _

_There were so many things I should have said to you that day. I wanted to wish you luck in whatever task you had ahead of you, I wanted to thank you for trying to protect of us, but most of all, I wanted to give this apology and say sorry for the life we had given to you. I wanted to say sorry about how you were treated like a prisoner and that we never loved you, especially that despite all we didn't do for you you were still willing to protect us from the enemy. _

_Yet I didn't, I didn't even say goodbye. I was a coward, always have been, I couldn't face my sister's magic, I couldn't face her death and now I couldn't face you leaving after so long._

_I knew somehow that we would never see each other again, even if you survived and we remained safe, you wouldn't come back to us, not after the way we treated you. We continued to pretend to have a perfect life and I acted as if you had never been left on our doorstep, so many years ago. I thought about you though, I realised since we were still alive and the world wasn't destroyed you must have survived too, and won whatever battle you had to face. I wondered what life you had, if you had a real life, not one that you just pretended to be perfect like we had, and I wondered what I would say to you if we met in the street._

_In the end, I decided there was so much I wanted to say to you that I had to write it down. I want to thank you for keeping us safe and protecting us from whatever was out there, you probably saved our lives, but mostly I want to give you an apology._

_I'm sorry you never got the love you deserved, I'm sorry we didn't respect and accept you for being a wizard, I'm sorry I let your mother down, I'm sorry I was the jealous sister and I'm sorry I was a coward._

_I don't know if you'll ever forgive me, but just by giving you an apology, even after I am dead, makes me feel sure for once that I am doing the right thing._

_Petunia._

Harry stared down at the letter, hardly believing what he had just read. He had never heard Aunt Petunia talk like this before, only once was she ever so blunt and truthful, and that was when she had revealed to him his parents had never died in a car crash and talked so bitterly about her sister being a witch.

He thought for so long he had known Aunt Petunia, the nosy neighbour, the fussy mother, the wife obsessed with keeping up appearances. But, as he had learnt so many times now, there was more to people than it first appeared.

Harry suddenly realised that Uncle Vernon was leaning forward, trying to read what Petunia had written, he quickly drew the letter closer to his chest, eyes narrowing suspiciously. Vernon leaned back quickly and cleared his throat.

"What does she say?" He asked, trying hard not to sound too demanding.

But Harry folded up the letter, "I think if she wanted you to know, she would have told you." He didn't mean to sound so cold, but he knew those words his Aunt had written to him were strictly between him and Petunia, they were the only heartfelt things he would ever receive from her.

Once Uncle Vernon would have looked angry that Harry had spoken to him in such a way, and he did look annoyed, but he also looked sad and understanding as he nodded and grumbled, "Yes, yes, quite right too."

There was another awkward silence. Uncle Vernon kept his eyes to the ground while Harry watched him carefully, wondering what he should say or do. He glanced back at the house, "Would you like to come in for some...tea?" He asked awkwardly.

Uncle Vernon glanced up at the house, looking alarmed. Harry wondered if he was looking worried because he feared stepping into a house like The Burrow, the thought of meeting more wizards, was shocked that wizards had tea or that his nephew was actually offering him to stay. At last he said, "Err...no thank you...best not...need to be on my way."

Harry nodded, slightly relieved, he did not like the idea of having tea with Uncle Vernon at The Burrow, such a thing seemed against nature, although it would have probably been quite amusing to watch.

"Goodbye then," said Uncle Vernon loudly, as if he felt the need to tell everyone nearby that he was now leaving. He held out his hand.

"Goodbye," Harry mumbled, shaking his Uncle's hand, surprised that Vernon Dursley actually wanted to shake his hand, but this day had been full of Dursley surprises.

With that Uncle Vernon turned and hurried away from the Burrow, not looking back. Harry watched him go, Aunt Petunia's letter still clutched in his hand, before turning and heading back towards The Burrow, towards his loved ones, and realising he would never think the same way about the Durselys again.

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_Thanks for reading!_

_If anyone's interested I also have a multi-chapter Harry Potter story on the go called 'Moments', this time all about the life changing events and doubts of Narcissa, who I think is a very intriguing character. Feel free to take a look if you're interested :)_

_Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little one shot, reviews are much appreciated!__ :)_


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